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I am a strong supporter of everyone's 1st Amendment rights, and I oppose PC bull****.

But I do have a caveat: Anyone who says something that offends others must be ready for criticism.

Just so. I have seen more than a few people on political forums like this one complaining that other posters are "attacking my right to free speech"....because they disagree with them. (Sarah Palin took a similar, monumentally-ignorant stance once or twice.)

The fact is that criticizing other's speech is the point where the ideals of free speech become crystal clear.

...for perhaps the most admirable among the admirable laws of Nature is the survival of the weakest.
--Vladimir Nabokov

But here's the catch: The people who claim the free market will take care of these things are often the one's most outraged when the market actually does it. The people who claim that the market alone will not be enough see these people outraged over the free market making it's "correction" and realize that they are the reason that the free market cannot, on it's own, fix the problem.

Case in point: The Zimmerman thing. That's an example of the free market exploiting the **** out of racial animosity for profit. The controversy generates ratings and ratings generate revenue. "But black people alone are too small of a demographic to really generate serious revenue, so let's piss off white people to make them interested in the case. How can that be done? Appeal to their feelings of victimization with regard to race (victimization that is evidenced by the outrage over the market dealing with racist comments and behaviors, such as those committed by Paula Dean)." The free market formula in effect with regard to race: Exploit racial tensions, generate those ratings, collect all that advertising cash, rinse and repeat when the next major thing happens that can be exploited for financial gain.

Even this Paula Deen thing is an example of racial tensions being exploited and even promoted for financial gain, just at a smaller level. Most people didn't give a flying **** about who Paula Deen was before this. She's just some dumpy hillbilly broad who makes pie. She's not the first dumpy hillbilly broad who makes pie to say something stupid, and she won't be the last dumpy hillbilly broad who makes pie to say something stupid. Ironically, her "defenders" are the reason why she gets so much play time, though. A rational person would hear what she did and say "Wow, that dumpy hillbilly broad who makes pie sure is a ****ing idiot." and that's the end of it. Bitch loses her job and the world is unharmed in any way. But her defenders nee dot make it about something more than what it is. It's apparently some vast media conspiracy against freedom and ****, so we have to defend this dumb **** before she gets what she deserves for being a ****ing moron.

Nonsense. It's a vast media conspiracy to make ****ing money. Controversy = profits. The media will do their damnedest to keep racial tensions strong because it's a ****ing cash cow for them. If people do not want it to happen, then they need to stop making it profitable to generate controversy. They shouldn't blame the media for it, they need to blame their own fat asses for planting themselves in front of the TV and generating revenue for the people exploiting the issue for profits. And planting their fat asses in front of FOX or Rush Limbaugh doesn't do it. I guarantee that Rush and Murdoch are ****ing ecstatic about these controversies. They certainly do their best to feed the flames, while talking out the side of their mouth over how horrible the exploitation is. They make a fortune on it.

And out culture is so ****ing stupid they suck it all in without once paying attention to the game of three-card-monty they are being duped by. "I'm not part of the problem!!! I only watch FOX, not the lamestream media!". That's the ultimate flaw in the free market. It would work perfectly if people weren't ****ing retarded, but unfortunately, since most people are dumber than a box of cat****, it often needs regulatory assistance.

(Haven't gotten into a good long debate with you in a while, so I figured I'd take my stab at it here )

I can't give you the wall of text, but I do disagree on one point. I do not think the media causes the **** storm from the idiots on both sides, they just use it. That is, all they have to do is their job, report the news essentially(ok, so it is really to make profit, but they do it by reporting these things), and they can simply trust that people will create the controversy, then it is their job to report the controversy. There is not conspiricy, there is no effort made to keep racial tensions strong, they are not needed. Just report the story and let human nature do the rest.

Look at the Z/M thing. The media did not create the "whose the bigger racist" pissing contest. They did not need to. They just had to stand back and let people do it for themselves, then report on it in a fairly neutral way. Pundits may have thrown a little fuel on the fire, but it was already a raging ****ing inferno. I get really annoyed at the way people blame the media instead of standing up and taking repsonsibility for what we ourselves are doing.

We became a great nation not because we are a nation of cynics. We became a great nation because we are a nation of believers - Lindsey Graham
Iíve always believed that America is an idea, not defined by its people but by its ideals. - Lindsey Graham

We liberals forced the Food Network to fire her and Alec Baldwin, well, his thing hasn't really blown up yet. You remember the black guy from Grey's Anatomy a few years ago? He went on some homophobic rant and was fired. Mel Gibson? Cee-Lo? Roland Martin? Adam Carolla? Tracy Morgan? There's a huge list of celebrities who've gone down for their homophobic rants.

then there are people like Roman Polanski that people actively defend. Let's face it, public reaction and disapproval is a rather finicky thing and doesn't usually follow any sense of real reason.

I was being facetious. Of course we didn't force the Food Network to fire her. The problem with the apologists is that they don't realize that free market environments tend to filter our their racism that the public reacts negatively to. Green reigns supreme over black & white.

Corrected that for you. If the food network thought they could turn a penny off of it, you would be seeing the PD plantation hour

I am a strong supporter of everyone's 1st Amendment rights, and I oppose PC bull****.

But I do have a caveat: Anyone who says something that offends others must be ready for criticism.

Yep.

I'm not a huge "PC" fan myself. That said, when one is deciding to make their career by essentially selling oneself, selling ones image, then what you do and how you do it becomes fully open to criticism and over analysis. There are a LOT of perks that come from being someone who makes ones living by being in the public eye and by banking on your reputation; but there are costs as well. The fact that your words and actions may be treated far harsher, far less nuanced, and with much less benefit of the doubt is one of those.

Had Paula Deen been a random chef who contributed recipes to Cook Books we would've never heard about any of these things on a national level and this wouldn't be a huge national story. Then again, if Paula Deen was just a random chef who contributed recipes to Cook Books then she wouldn't have been a star of a television show, helped to provide her son the ability to get onto television as well, have an entire line of cookware branded with her name, and have a number of chain resturants buffetted by the fact their backed by the Deen name.

The Food Network did what any business would and should do with people like this. Let them cater to racists if they want on their own platform, works for Glenn Beck.

Thinking more about this, one of the most troubling parts of this story is that the woman in question only made ~$10/hour after working with Deen for 22 years and helping found her restaurant. I think that speaks a great deal to Deen's character especially if she said that she considered this woman "family" as the woman claims she did. Given that the woman only had a 9th grade education and was originally made to feel like part of the family, it sounds like Deen took HUGE advantage of her. As stories come out, Deen just seems like a pretty skeevy person.

Look at the Z/M thing. The media did not create the "whose the bigger racist" pissing contest. They did not need to. They just had to stand back and let people do it for themselves, then report on it in a fairly neutral way. Pundits may have thrown a little fuel on the fire, but it was already a raging ****ing inferno. I get really annoyed at the way people blame the media instead of standing up and taking repsonsibility for what we ourselves are doing.

It's a chicken and an egg thing though Redress. People will walk it all the way back to the notion of it being covered as a "national" story to begin with.

I think there's blame to go around. The public has a lot to bare as well. But I don't think the reason the Media begins to cover things like Casey Anthony or Zimmerman is becuase they're just desiring to "report news". They from the very onset signs that the public could easily take such a story and turn it into a controversy, which then creates an avenue to fill air waves. Where as things they don't think will cause a stir or a controversy they're more likely to ignore because it's not of a benefit to THEM...even if it may be JUST as worth while in terms of its "news" worthiness.

IE...they didn't have to manufacture the "controversy" with the Zimmerman case because, as you said, once it's presented to people then the public will create the controversy on your own. HOWEVER, I absolutely think that people deciding what to put on their news broadcasts or to write about on their papers/sites saw a situation that screamed "This case will cause some MAJOR controversy!" (Rather than "Wow! this is some MAJOR news that is important for people to know!) and they run with it.

The same situation happens black on black, white on white, with a knife instead of a gun, to two individuals of a similar age, etc and it probably never gets covered by national news agencies because it no longer has thet recipe for a controversy to potentially grow from it.

I don't think it's a "conspiracy"...I think it's common sense business. No, news organizatoins job is not to "report the news". Their job is to fill time / fill pages to spur viewership/readership and attract sponsors. "Reporting News" is the MEANS of filling that time. And when you have a lot of time and a lot of pages to fill, finding things to focus on that are likely to spawn stories and topics and conversations based on the likely response is the way to go because you essentially are able to "Steer" your way into easier content.

I can't give you the wall of text, but I do disagree on one point. I do not think the media causes the **** storm from the idiots on both sides, they just use it. That is, all they have to do is their job, report the news essentially(ok, so it is really to make profit, but they do it by reporting these things), and they can simply trust that people will create the controversy, then it is their job to report the controversy. There is not conspiricy, there is no effort made to keep racial tensions strong, they are not needed. Just report the story and let human nature do the rest.

Look at the Z/M thing. The media did not create the "whose the bigger racist" pissing contest. They did not need to. They just had to stand back and let people do it for themselves, then report on it in a fairly neutral way. Pundits may have thrown a little fuel on the fire, but it was already a raging ****ing inferno. I get really annoyed at the way people blame the media instead of standing up and taking repsonsibility for what we ourselves are doing.

You don't really disagree insofar as we are both firmly in the "We do it ourselves" camp. The media is going to do what it does to get profits. We determine what they are going to do by using their product. If people didn't want to be a part of the controversy, they'd turn off the TV.

If we disagree on anything, it's that I think that the media can create controversy by making the decision to report something that is relatively inconsequential on a national level as though it's something of great import. Example: Aaron Hernandez. Really, aside from the person who was killed and their family, few people are affected by that story. But people everywhere want to know about it. The media could, in a fit of journalistic integrity, treat it like a relatively inconsequential story of little national import. But that won't get the ratings.

So while I believe that, ultimately, it's the consumers fault we're inundated with relatively meaningless **** passing for news, I do think that the media needs to be called out for it's lack of professional integrity.